How bad will stimulus checks and unemployments benefits affect us?

[StDragon]

14 minutes ago, Deli said:

The flood of wealthy foreign students apply for US colleges probably has more to do to distort the supply demand.

There's definitely that aspect. When you buy cheap products and services from China and India, you're effectively funding their education too. And those dollars will come back to compete against you.

 

There's a good paper on the Bennett Hypothesis that it explains it rather well.

 

 

[StDragon]

3 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

@StDragonMy point was that the construction industry treats its people like disposable labor. You can have a high demand one day and no demand next month. Nothing is guaranteed. You can't just say get this career over the other. The economy is so volatile and so are the jobs which depend on it. 

 

If the current trend continues, I am just worried that there will be a dystopian future out there where skilled workers will have to bid their own work on a LinkedIn app. And suddenly everyone is a temp worker trading their labor for crumbs. Everything can become a race to the bottom. 

 

That's called Neo-feudalism and we're already here. It's all relative from here on out.

[TempestCatto]

11 hours ago, Austinham said:

I'm no Boomer, noware close. A 90s kid to be exact. Alot of collage students get way to much handed to them only to expect more. I'm mean really?  Why not... I don't know? Find a short term job to pay the bills? There's a lot of low level basic jobs to be had right now.

In PA most places are closed as most things are considered "non essential". I've tried getting jobs at local super markets but there's a lot of competition for those jobs (at least around here). And no, college kids don't usually get shit handed to them. Not everyone gets grants and free rides. Athletes and borderline geniuses do. But the average person does not. Hell, I'm going for a commercial pilots license and there's literally no grants that I qualify for strictly because of what my major is.

 

11 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

 

Just to educate you a bit, Gen X'ers and millennials are not boomers.  "boomers" technically are people over the age of 55.  And everyone forgot about the arcade game generation of kids...

Gates is techically a boomer, but Steve Jobs was borderline.

 

Or is your term an insult meaning anyone who disagrees with you is a senior citizen?  I guess that makes you a Zoomer, eh?

It was meant as an insult. Thought that was clear.

[Ithanul]

On 4/24/2020 at 7:59 AM, PurplDrank said:

Japan and China hold most of the debt. Look at the charts. 

 

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

That chart is showing the break out of the Foreign portion of the debt not the entire total.  Japan and China, yes, owns the largest parts of the Foreign portion, but from that very article:

Quote

The public holds $18.23 trillion, or 75.1%, of the national debt

 

Many people believe that much of U.S. debt is owed to foreign countries like China and Japan. The truth is, most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds. This means U.S. citizens, through their retirement money, own most of the national debt.

 

 

[atxcyclist]

23 hours ago, StDragon said:

That's correct.

 

In America at least, there's a shortage of skilled labor such as construction, electrical, plumbing, machining, etc. For the longest time, the Big Lie is that everyone needs to go to college or else you're a nobody. At the same time, the work ethic culture has been eroded. Mike Rowe goes on this quite extensively; you can look him up.

 

Secondly, College tuition has been going up because the government has been distorting the market. It's all about Supply/Demand. There's a finite amount of supply, so when loans are easier to obtain, everyone that can will apply. You're just competing against the other students until there's a supply/demand equilibrium. Hand out more cash, the price of tuition goes up, people ask for more cash. It's a feedback cycle.

 

Third, there's grade inflation. While it's ageism to suggest, perhaps it's best to base one's academic qualifications based on the year they graduated from. But then again, once you've gained job experience and stay the course on career path, it's not nearly as important as it was fresh out of college. At least for most people.

Here's something to realize about tradesman like plumbers and electricians: If you're interested in one of those vocations, you have to be someone's near-minimum-wage slave for at least 10,000 "clocked-in" hours in order to apply for your master license and go out on your own. That's quite onerous and a long time for someone to work a job in a metropolitan area where the cost of living is very high. 10,000 hours of effort is deep into a 4-year degree in terms of actual hours spent. 

[straight_stewie]

33 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

10,000 hours of effort is deep into a 4-year degree in terms of actual hours spent.

10,000 hours is almost exactly 5 years.

However, even at minimum wage in the US you earn $72,500 gross during that time, while at college you earn -$30,000 (average public out-of-state not accounting for interest on loans). Unless you studied a rare and difficult degree or are very lucky, you won't even be making more than that tradesman for at least the first 1-5 years after graduating, possibly never making more.

Or, to put it more concisely, for the $50,000 - $70,000 salary mark, you can spend your time in the college of hard knocks or the college of higher education, and be equally well off when finished.

 

33 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

10,000 "clocked-in" hours in order to apply for your master license

Although to nitpick a little bit, you forgot about journeymen and labor unions.

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

10,000 hours is almost exactly 5 years.

However, even at minimum wage in the US you earn $72,500 gross during that time, while at college you earn -$30,000 (average public out-of-state not accounting for interest on loans). Unless you studied a rare and difficult degree or are very lucky, you won't even be making more than that tradesman for at least the first 1-5 years after graduating, possibly never making more.

Or, to put it more concisely, for the $50,000 - $70,000 salary mark, you can spend your time in the college of hard knocks or the college of higher education, and be equally well off when finished.

 

Although to nitpick a little bit, you forgot about journeymen and labor unions.

In Australia apprenticeships are usually 4 years and people start them when they are 16 and still living at home.  So they really only have to buy their tools of trade with whatever they get paid.

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, comander said:

 

Globalism is basically a great equalizer.

Not it's not. That's because not all nations play by the same rules. In addition, you'll never be able to compete against the coder that can do the same job for two bowls of rice.

 

 

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Not it's not. That's because not all nations play by the same rules. In addition, you'll never be able to compete against the coder that can do the same job for two bowls of rice.

 

 

That's why it's the great equalizer,   Capitalism is great, until there is nothing left to capitalize on in your own country and the only thing left is to start manipulating existing markets or start capitalizing on poorer countries for cheap labor.   Everyone was happy about this (even ads in the US about how great capitalizing)  until they discovered that the poorer countries were in a position to become capitalists too, but when china capitalise on their market conditions to make something cheaper to make a sale wee don't call it capitalism, no, we call it globalization.  The only thing that changed was you went from being the benefactor at their expense to being the victim to their benefit.

[handymanshandle]

On 4/24/2020 at 5:26 AM, SansVarnic said:

The US is not giving out Stimulus checks. Not sure why this is so hard to understand, the US is giving out compensation for sending people home and not letting them work. Legally the government has to compensate a citizen if it prevents them from going to work to earn a wage. I cannot at the moment quote or state at the moment where that is but that is were all this is coming from. Stimulus is different. Money is money, yes but these are two different things. The stimulus the government gave out 10 years ago was an option, this is a legal obligation.

 

This is not a tax return.

This is not a stimulus.

This is compensation for taking away the ability to earn wages.

The US government cannot deny a citizen the ability to earn wages without compensation.

*You are being compensated for your time lost.

 

Believe what you wish, if you wish it so. These are just the facts of what is happening.

 

*edit

I kind of agree with that take on what this check was because I was making anywhere from $1300 to $1400 a month now I've been working a temp job and idk if I still qualify for unemployment.
 

[straight_stewie]

20 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The only thing that changed was you went from being the benefactor at their expense to being the victim to their benefit.

Let's not start those arguments. Those are a two way street.

Lest I turn it around and use the same argument to start lecturing you about how Australia is nearly entirely dependent on the United States globalization yet calls them evil capitalists every chance they get (cough cough) (Additionally, I don't necessarily agree with the post to which you were replying. I'm just making the point.)

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

Let's not start those arguments. Those are a two way street.

Lest I turn it around and use the same argument to start lecturing you about how Australia is nearly entirely dependent on the United States globalization yet calls them evil capitalists every chance they get (cough cough) (Additionally, I don't necessarily agree with the post to which you were replying. I'm just making the point.)

 

My point was not a shit dig at the US, We have just as many people say the same stuff here in Aus.  The point was it's a bit hypocritical to have this view of capitalism for so long then when the tables turn for whatever reason or you no longer benefit from it that you just  start preaching as if it's an abomination.

[StDragon]

5 hours ago, comander said:

The first bit is valid. 

The second part is the whole equalizer part. If the value I bring isn't enough to justify itself above and beyond some other alternative, I deserve to be paid more similarly to the person working for that little and THEY deserve a huge raise. This is especially the case if they had to work like crazy with fewer resources to get to where they are. 

Just because you were born in the right country doesn't mean you automatically deserve 50x the pay. 

That's what equality of opportunity looks like... open competition, instead of hiding behind walls. 
 

Skip to 6:30.

70 years ago there were two worlds. Now there's one big joint world with the people in the middle getting more of a living wage (think $3-15 a day instead of 50 cents) - definitely not a luxury wage (I still remember making $7 at my first job) where you can afford things like not having tape worms but... there's generally a trend in the right direction. I'd much rather be a random person in the world today than 100 years ago. 

Now, forecast out a fair bit. Eventually all the people at the bottom will be lifted up. Guess what happens that? The upper middle part starts to go up. We're actually approaching that part... though it might not be the lower class in the top countries, it might be the high skill people in the more middle-income countries (think guy with an engineering degree from an IIT who moves to the US, gets an MS at Stanford and an MBA at Wharton, and then starts his own company back in India - or becomes CEO of Google [see Sundar Pichai])

The scary part for many people is that intellectually... good luck keeping up with that dude. It's easy to argue that good, hard labor should be rewarded, but the dude above is playing a different game (make it so that those jobs don't have to be done so much). It's hard to just work harder when the game changes to "do something different" and learning is hard. 

And yeah, at some level, it's unfair that talent isn't equal. The only silver lining is that most people have some shining star... it's just hard to make that seed of potential blossom. 

I got it a long time ago. The end-game is "wealth" is in the products and services we obtain through cheap labor and not in the cost on fiat alone. As in, the poorest American still lives like a king compared to 500 years ago. Back then, if you had shelter, a hot shower, heat, air conditioning...that's some pampering right there. Oh, and a drive-through to your nearest KFC is a feast!

 

No, the problems are based on unsustainable fiat currency caused largely in part by state actors and public policy decisions.

 

Take automation and AI for example; that is a deflationary force on the market (machines don't require health benefits and a salary) . When it displaces more jobs than people can adapt to, that causes unemployment. So Gov prints helicopter money to help out its citizens (going further in debt) all while the valuation of that currency goes down. So deflation with inflation and you get stagflation. Other nations are doing the same, if anything to keep employment numbers up by keeping their own exports at a lower cost. China has taken this to the nth degree with currency manipulation to that end.

 

In the US at least, there's always been the argument of trickle-up vs trickle-down economics. The argument being which is the most efficient and "fair" (fair being subjective). The truth is both are preferred to what we have now given that at least this provides velocity in currency. But due to unchecked globalism (out-sourcing)  and the aforementioned public policies of immigration (H-1B and H-2B in-sourcing), the entire middle-class is being hollowed out. This is a trickle-out; and we as a nation (America at least) has been hemorrhaging wealth. And this is compounded by the fact that in just 2017 alone, 148 billion dollars was sent back overseas in the form of remittance. That's a lot of cash not being injected into the local economy!

 

So there you have it. An explanation as to how and why the disparity in wealth and opportunities continues to grow. I wasn't joking about the whole neo-feudalism thing. We are headed towards that. That's the best case scenario! The worst case is WW3 followed by a mass human culling of the population as the result. Something scary to think about, but how does nature deal with over consumption of resources? It kills it off. No, really it does! What does the human body do to muscle that's not used? It gets rid of it (atrophy) to conserve resources. I'm not telling you how it should be, rather illustrating how it is in nature; and mankind is still very much part of the rules of nature.

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread locked ***

 

When ideology comes to play, we can conclude discussion.